The 2013 National Primary Schools Athletics Championships (NAPSAC) should have been in full swing today at the Kensington Oval, but they have now been “postponed indefinitely”.
Coming out of a meeting with physical education teachers yesterday at the Barbados Union of Teachers headquarters in Merry Hill, Welches, St Michael, a decision was taken to cancel the meet for this year, but that stance has since been softened.
“The principals met and were not in favour of Blenheim. The Ministry of Education met and was not in favour of Blenheim,” said Vaman Harbin, chairman of the organizing committee.
“We have indefinitely postponed [the meet] because of security concerns, but any options that could help us, we would explore.”
NAPSAC was originally scheduled to be held at the National Stadium after the new Mondo track was laid, but then Kensington Oval emerged as an alternative venue.
The zone preliminaries of NAPSAC were scheduled to run off this week with the semi-finals on March 28 and the finals five days later.
However, the West Indies Cricket Board invoked the one-month exclusivity clause prior to the start of the March 12 Test match between the West Indies and Zimbabwe and Plan C was hatched.
With assurances coming from both former Minister of Sports Stephen Lashley and National Sports Council Director of Sports Erskine King that the track would have been ready by the end of February or early March, plans were made to return to the National Stadium.
However, King revealed last week that the track would not be ready until May and proposed the Blenheim, St Michael, venue for both primary and secondary sports.
Harbin has not given up on NAPSAC being held this year and said he had been trying to contact Ben Toppin, the acting CEO of Kensington Oval Management Inc., to ascertain the exact day when the exclusivity period would end.
If the venue is available during the week of March 25 to 28, they will host four of the zone meets before breaking for Easter holidays.
However, Barbados are scheduled to play the Windward Islands in a WICB Regional Four-day match from March 23 to 26 and the Super50 semi-finals and final are slated for April 18, 19 and 21, respectively.
Fortunately, there are no Caribbean Union of Teachers Championships this year. Barbados won the biennial championships last year in Jamaica and next year’s meet will be held in Trinidad and Tobago.
However, some of the Under-13 athletes at primary school are eligible to help Barbados mount a title defence for the Caribbean (CAC) Age Group Championships in June, but those trials should take place in May.
